


How to Catch Flies (and Make Friends With Them)

by Pic_Akai



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-29
Updated: 2014-04-29
Packaged: 2018-01-21 05:08:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1538819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pic_Akai/pseuds/Pic_Akai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few months after Lestrade transfers to New Scotland Yard, this stupid prick in fancy clothes and a magic car keeps phoning him and picking him up. Turns out it's because he's lonely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Catch Flies (and Make Friends With Them)

"Detective Inspector."

Greg was instantly on his guard. It was difficult not to assume the worst when a woman he didn't know was approaching him in the middle of the street and addressing him by his professional title.

"Who's asking?" It was only seven in the evening, still light for a little while yet. Plenty of people passing by. None of them seemed interested in the conversation, but that could easily be a setup.

"Someone who wants to meet you. Please get in the car." As the woman spoke, a sleek Mercedes, black all over including windows and bumpers pulled up alongside them, in a space it didn't look like it should fit in.

"No," Greg said, and decided the best course of action was to keep walking.

The woman turned and followed him. "Detective Inspector, I must encourage you to get in the car."

Greg addressed her as he kept heading for the tube station. "And I must encourage you to leave me alone before I do you for harrassment. All right?"

He got home all right, but he kept one eye on the door all evening.

* * * * *

The following evening he finished early, miracle upon miracles. Hunter wouldn't admit it was because of the input from that mad bastard with the drug problem, but anyone who was involved knew full well it would have taken them weeks to sew those clues together themselves. Hunter was a proud man, and stupid about it. Greg wasn't. He felt good about his victories, but he wasn't going to let his ego get in the way of catching a murderer.

At half five he was mere yards away from the station, deliberating whether to get off a stop or two early and enjoy the sun with a longer walk, when the same woman appeared again.

He took the time to study her properly now, having stopped short a few yards away. Roughly five five, dark blonde hair, probably in her thirties. Very well fitted dark grey trouser suit. Flat shoes, the style his wife liked to wear - ex-wife. He still made that mistake, more often than he should. Greg knew it wasn't so much that he still wished they were together, as it was that he thought about her so infrequently that he forgot sometimes that they were no longer a couple. That lack of thought was what had pushed them apart in the end, but it came from both sides.

They stared at one another for a long moment, Greg clocking her for the report he was probably going to need to write at some point and her...he didn't know. Didn't, in fact, want to know. Still, he waited for her to speak.

"The car is ready for you," the woman said.

"So's the tube," Greg said, motioning to the steps. "And that's the transport I'm taking." He walked past her, and two men who'd been walking down the steps ahead of him turned suddenly and blocked his way. Their expressions were blank, but their body language said enough.

"'Scuse me, gentlemen," Greg said. Nobody moved. "I'm trying to get down these stairs."

"Your presence really is required," the woman said from behind him.

Greg half-turned, wanting to keep all of them in his eyeline. "By who, James Bond? This is getting boring now. Look, I don't _want_ to do you for harrassment, because it's a lot of paperwork, but if you're going to keep getting in my way like this it's going to have to happen."

"Or you could just come with us," she said.

There were people piling up behind them, grumbling about having to wait to get past on the other side of the staircase.

"I already learned the lesson about not going with strangers when I was three," Greg replied. "Becoming a police officer didn't exactly teach me otherwise." He turned back to the men. "Seriously, get out of my way or I'm calling for backup."

"We could stop you before you do that," one of the men said, in a tone that sounded like he was talking about having a headache.

"You could," Greg agreed, "but we're in broad daylight, there are a lot of people trying to get by - who you're also blocking, by the way - and if you come within arm's reach, I'll scream bloody murder. So whatever you do, there'll be a nice street full of witnesses. Now what's your choice?" He asked the last question in a louder voice, tone conveying his annoyance. He was not in the mood to be bullied by ridiculous people out of spy novels.

The three looked at one another, and then as one, they moved off back up the stairs, the men staying out of arm's reach. Greg sighed and went down towards the station, though he didn't let himself relax until he got to his own flat, after he'd checked every room and lock.

* * * * *

On Thursday evening, Greg was still in his office at half seven. He was just finishing typing his description of the previous two days' encounters, bracing himself for a third, when a knock came at his door.

"Yeah?" he called out, not looking away from the screen.

"Sir? There's a...man here to see you."

Greg looked up at that, frowning. PC Lakeland knew better than to introduce someone without actually introducing them.

The man that was with her stood in the doorway, waiting to be invited in. He didn't look at all embarrassed or awkward about the odd introduction. Greg stood up.

"Sorry, you are?" Greg asked. He deliberately waited to dismiss Lakeland; she ought to be squirming.

"Good evening, Detective Inspector," the man said. "May I have a word?" He had an accent obviously cultivated at a very expensive school, matching his clothes. He even appeared to be carrying a parasol, but surely it was just a fancy umbrella. No real person actually carried a parasol these days.

"Not until I know who you are," Greg said.

The man cocked his head slightly and didn't speak at first. Greg wondered if that was meant to intimidate him into saying something else. "I am here on a rather delicate matter," he said.

"That's nice," Greg said. "What's your name and how did you get in?"

"I entered through the front door."

"Piss off," Greg said, definitely fed up of it now. He moved out from behind the desk and waved a hand at the man, trying to shoo him away like he was a fly. "Go on, I haven't got time for this."

He had his hand on the edge of the door, ready to close it, when the man said quickly, "My apologies, Detective Inspector. I wasn't intending to be facetious but I don't often need to introduce myself."

Greg stopped with his hand on the edge of the door, half-closed. "Famous, are you?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "I don't care. Still doesn't tell me who you are."

The man seemed to be thinking that over, and then he said, "My name is Mycroft Holmes."

"Who do you work for?"

Mycroft Holmes smiled tightly for a second, then it went. "This is more of a personal matter," he said. "Regarding Sherlock."

Greg tried to work out the appropriate response to this. When he couldn't, what came out instead was, "Fuck off." It was muted and disbelieving rather than aggressive, but the man clearly wasn't expecting it, and his eyes widened.

That got Greg to collect himself. He turned to Lakeland, who looked close to scared. He made a mental note to talk to her about her game face, and then said, "Thanks," nodding pointedly. She disappeared down the corridor.

Greg took a step back, but didn't invite the man in yet. "What relation are you?" he asked. Sherlock, the messed up addict with an entirely improbable aptitude for detective work, always introduced himself as Sherlock Holmes, like the name was meant to mean something. It probably had done in his circles when he was a teenager, but in his twenties living the life of any ordinary down-and-out, all it got him were disinterested looks or sometimes somebody reaching for their PNB.

Mycroft cleared his throat. "I am his brother."

"My sympathies," Greg said. He turned and walked back to the desk, but decided on leaning against it rather than going around to sit down again. He gestured vaguely with his arm, and Mycroft entered the room.

Greg saw Mycroft begin to speak, but he beat him to it. "So how _did_ you get in here without telling anyone else that?"

Mycroft frowned at him; he looked back. He wasn't getting distracted that easily. If Sherlock was that clever, there was every likelihood this man was as well, and there was no way Greg was having two of them running rings round him. This one looked a lot more put together, but that could easily be a front. He'd seen Sherlock put on a mask at the second scene he turned up to in order to get information from a witness, and it had been creepily good.

"Like I say, I don't often need to introduce myself."

"Well, now you do." Greg folded his arms.

Mycroft's head raised ever-so-slightly. "Detective Inspector, I don't wish to upset your evening any longer than I have to, but if you require a command from one of your seniors that you listen to me, that can be arranged. Perhaps the Deputy Commissioner?"

Greg suspected he was supposed to be impressed by that, or worried. He snorted. "Go ahead. I've already had one raking over the coals this week for listening to your brother; why not make it a second for _not_ listening to you? Makes perfect sense."

From the way Mycroft's shoulders dropped a little, he wasn't happy with Greg's nonchalance. "Let me cut to the chase," he said, with a hard tone. "My brother is-"

"Not my problem," Greg cut across him. "I've already told him I'm not involving him again, so if we're done here you can go back to your Mystery Machine." He wanted to reach for his coat and go, but he didn't want to leave this bloke in his office. God knows what he'd come back to find in the morning.

"Because you were disciplined?"

"I wasn't _disciplined_ ," Greg said. "This is the Met, not public school. But that's part of it, yes. He's more trouble than he's worth." Greg wasn't sure that was strictly true. Sherlock's skills were worth a _lot_. But then he was a hell of a lot of trouble, too, and unfortunately Hunter seemed to focus a lot more on the trouble than the skills. So, for that matter, did Greg's team. Only three months into this job, they didn't quite trust him yet, and clearly none of them trusted Sherlock, who he'd been informed they'd had dealings with previously.

Mycroft took a while to answer. Eventually he said, "I don't think you believe that."

"I don't care what you think."

"You should."

Greg studied him, and wondered if he was meant to find him dangerous. He didn't. He found him an arrogant tosser, and while he could probably make life pretty bloody difficult for Greg, so could Hunter. And since Hunter was the one directly above him, Greg was going to pay attention to him first and this guy later.

"Are we done?" Greg asked.

Mycroft looked very unhappy. It looked sort of ridiculous on him. "We aren't," he said. "But I acknowledge your determination not to change your mind tonight, so I shall leave you for now. Good night, Detective Inspector."

"Mmm."

It wasn't until Greg was leaving that he considered the possibility that this bloke and the annoying woman were associated. Reaching home without being stopped seemed to prove it. He slammed the door in frustration, and didn't wait to hear the shout of disapproval from below before turning on the TV, switching to Planet Rock radio and turning the volume up.

* * * * *

"Good evening, Detective-"

"No!" Greg barked, shocking the woman. "No! I am on my way home, I am not having this fucking discussion. Tell your boss to go and bloody do one."

He kept walking as he shouted, and waited twenty five minutes for the next train, swearing under his breath the whole time.

* * * * *

Greg spent the weekend looking at furniture he wasn't interested in, except for as a way to get rid of the boxes stacked haphazardly around his flat. He went to the gym and hated every second of it. He hated more that he'd paid for it, not having realised he was such a masochist. He ate takeaway Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening, and didn't speak to anyone who wasn't providing him with a service apart from his sons (ten minutes for Alistair, five for Robin).

The weekend hadn't so much recharged him as provided a bookend for the week, and Monday was therefore much less of a letdown for him than it seemed to be for his team. He actually enjoyed the day, up until half six when he shut his computer down and suddenly felt a sense of foreboding.

His expectations were not disappointed. The woman had the cheek this time to stand right outside the bloody Yard, right next to one of the uniforms out the front, not even on the other side of the road. Greg gave her a dark look and kept walking. He felt he'd said all he needed to say.

"Mr Holmes demands to meet with you," she said in a rush, probably thinking he was going to cut her off like he had on Friday.

"No," Greg said shortly.

"He said to tell you," she said, a little out of breath from having run to catch up with him, "that if you continue to resist the delays will continue to get longer."

Greg scowled at her.

"He didn't say, but I'm letting you know, that he's not above letting the whole city get to a standstill."

Greg stopped. "Who is this guy?" he asked her, not expecting an answer. "Who is he, the fucking Maharaja of England we don't know about?"

She gave him a look which he took to mean, "Might as well be."

"Bloody hell," Greg huffed. "He's a right prick, you know?"

She looked offended. "That is not how I would describe Mr Holmes."

"Then you clearly don't know him very well." Greg got into the magically appearing car.

They rode in stony silence until they reached an underground car park. The driver parked carefully between a Lamborghini Diablo and a huge thing that Greg guessed was American, but couldn't name.

He followed the woman through the car park and into the lift. It was only halfway up that Greg realised this was probably a pretty stupid thing to be doing, given that no one knew where he was and he still didn't know that this Mycroft Holmes was anything he said - or intimated - he was. But Greg had spent his time on the beat following his gut, and more often than not it served him well.

So it was he found himself led to a pretty plush apartment. The hallway carpet was so thick it was practically soundproof, and there only appeared to be two doors on the whole floor apart from the door leading to the stairs and the lift at the other end.

The woman knocked on one. It was answered by a man in a suit, sort of halfway between a businessman and a butler, though how he'd managed that combination Greg wasn't sure.

The man stepped back, holding the door open, and Greg glanced at both the silent people before guessing that was his cue to enter.

The woman stayed outside, and the man closed the door and then began walking across the room. Greg decided to stay put for now. The man realised he wasn't following a few steps ahead, and turned round with an uncertain look on his face. Greg stared back. He'd chosen to come, but he didn't have to make it easy for them.

The man hovered uncertainly for a few moments, then made up his mind and continued, disappearing through an ornate door at the other side of what seemed to be a massive lounge. Greg took in his surroundings. The kitchenette area off to the side seemed to suggest a studio apartment, but the hallway had been long enough that Greg thought there was probably a full kitchen buried somewhere else here as well. There was a hallway off to the left, and two more doors on the right-hand wall. Straight ahead was the door the man had gone through, and then double French doors which led out to a patio.

"Detective Inspector," Mycroft greeted him as he appeared at the end of the hallway, with a tone that suggested they'd met for tea as arranged rather than that Greg had been bullied into coming. "Please, do sit down."

"No thanks," Greg said. "What do you want?" He made a mental note to keep his coat on, even though the temperature in the apartment was just this side of tropical.

Mycroft was dressed in another thin suit, but obviously expensive thin, like how women paid more for skirts the shorter they were. He paused and pulled on his shirt cuffs as though they were annoying him. Obviously buying thinking time. Greg waited.

"You're a rather difficult man to converse with," Mycroft said finally, crossing the room. He stopped at a sideboard with a selection of drinks on it and offered Greg something with a wave and a raised eyebrow. Greg didn't bother to reply to that bit.

"I didn't come here so you could analyse me," Greg said. "I'm here because I want you to stop messing with my evenings."

Mycroft was pouring himself something brown. It was all in unlabelled, fancy shaped bottles. "I assure you, I feel much the same," he said, causing Greg to bark out a laugh. He looked up and frowned. "So let us reach a business agreement."

"What?" Greg snapped.

Mycroft put down the glass he'd just picked up, and turned to face Greg fully, drawing himself up. "My brother is interested in solving crimes. He is also, regrettably, interested in more base pursuits, such as the ingestion of cocaine."

"Bit stupid to admit that to a DI, don't you think?"

Mycroft smiled at him. It looked ugly, though Greg knew it wasn't meant to. "Surely by now you understand I carry far more power than you do, Detective Inspector."

Greg tipped his head to the side in acquiescence. "Suppose so. Then again," he added, "you're the one chasing me for something."

Mycroft's smile went rigid, and Greg fought a grin.

"If I may continue," Mycroft said, and Greg waved a hand. "Sherlock needs things to keep his mind busy. Solving...murders and the like seems to fulfill that need adequately, at least for some amount of time. You are thus far the only police officer who has been willing to see him more than once, and equally been able to stand him on multiple occasions for long enough to make use of his skills."

Greg didn't get the sense this was meant as a compliment, more as a statement of facts. Facts which added more weight to the masochist argument, he thought grumpily.

"I would like to propose that you continue allowing him to work with you, on a part-time basis."

"Not a chance," Greg said, shaking his head.

"I hadn't finished," said Mycroft.

"I don't care what you add to that," Greg said. "I can stand him, yeah. For a bit. No bloody way on a part-time basis. And my team will barely allow him to be in the same room. Some of them have arrested him in the past just because they saw him, if the stories are true, and having met your brother I can quite easily believe them. There's no way that will work and I don't want it to work either."

Mycroft was silent for a long time. Greg waited. Eventually one of them was going to have to crack and clearly walking away from this guy didn't make him give up, so he might as well wait it out this evening rather than suffer them following him every night until the end of time.

"I can make it very worth your while."

"No you can't." Greg was sure that what he wanted, this guy didn't have to give. "I don't want your money."

Mycroft narrowed his eyes. "You want a reconciliation with your ex-wife," he said. "To see your sons more often..."

"I know what I want," Greg said before he could continue, too annoyed to be impressed. "I also know that you can't provide it, and if you could I wouldn't want it from you in exchange for letting your little brother ruin my relationship with my team, never mind my own sanity."

Mycroft took a long swallow. It looked like he was swishing whatever it was around his mouth. "I prefer the carrot method, Detective Inspector," he said after a while, "but if you refuse it I am not averse to using the stick."

"What are you going to threaten me with?" Greg asked. "As I said, it won't bloody work. He's too much of a - well, a nutjob, frankly. Threaten all you like but it'll have to be the entire team, plus anyone external who ever gets involved in a case, and even then you'll be hard pressed to stop them from just decking him on instinct."

"My brother needs this kind of input," Mycroft said, suddenly very intense. "Consulting would be a perfect fit for him. Not one I would choose, but if we were able to choose he would not be a drug addict either."

Greg sighed. As much as the man was a prick, he did seem to actually care about Sherlock. That was no mean feat in itself, given that Sherlock was a right bastard. Trying to imagine the two of them in a room together was almost impossible. "He's wasting a lot of potential."

"You see why I'm asking you."

"I can't..." Greg shook his head. "Look, I can let him in on a case every now and then, like we've done. _Maybe_ a few more, if he's clean and sober. I will never have him on a crime scene under the influence."

Mycroft inclined his head. "Of course."

Greg considered before he spoke. "And maybe...he could look at a few cold cases? That way all he'll really have to do is look at files and people won't have to talk to him. Or does he need the live crime scene to do his thing?"

Mycroft smiled. "You've met him," he said in response. "What do you think?"

"Yeah." Greg rolled his eyes. "He probably doesn't even need the files. He could tell me what crime's coming up, never mind who's done what's already happened."

"Not quite," said Mycroft, swilling liquid around in his glass. "Future forecasts are much more my sort of thing."

Greg assessed him, and said, "Because you're making it happen." Mycroft didn't respond, but he was still smiling.

"Right," Greg said, after a few seconds. "Have we finished?"

The car dropped him back off outside his flat, in the end, which was some small compensation. Mycroft had agreed to stop trying to waylay him in exchange for him letting Sherlock in on things every once in a while. Greg wasn't entirely happy with the situation, but he'd endured much worse for less, so he'd live with it.

He just hoped he'd get a few days' respite before Sherlock arrived at a crime scene demanding to be let in to tell them all how stupid they were.

* * * * *

Sherlock had solved two current cases and six cold ones by the time Greg saw Mycroft again. (It would have been further cold cases, but he'd taken several out and merely glanced at them before declaring, "Boring!" or, "Obvious," and refusing to say any more about them.) He hadn't actually expected to see Mycroft again at all, but there was no mistaking the black car that crept into view and cruised alongside him for several hundred yards before he stopped and faced it.

The back door opened, revealing the woman again.

"Do I look like a bloody prostitute?" Greg asked her, leaning down. She frowned back at him. "Stop fucking cruising me," he said, getting in. "It's embarrassing."

The car took them this time to a tiny side street barely wide enough for it to fit down. When it stopped - blocking the road - Greg followed her to the front step of a dilapidated house, crammed in amongst its neighbours. She knocked twice on the door and then left him.

Mycroft answered. "What the hell's this?" Greg asked him. "You've gone downmarket in the last couple of months, haven't you?"

Mycroft had been leading him through the darkened hallway into the kitchen at the end, but he stopped just shy of the door and turned round abruptly. "This house," he said coldly, "happens to be something of a family heirloom. It has been passed down the generations and I consider it to be rather special."

Greg looked around, at the peeling greeny-brown wallpaper and the flaked paint on the bannisters, the torn lino on the kitchen floor and Mycroft's unamused face and declared, "Bollocks."

There was a several second pause, during which he didn't doubt himself for a moment, before Mycroft smiled like they had a secret together and said, "Well done, Detective Inspector."

"I didn't get that title free in a cereal box, you know."

They sat at a chipped Formica table, a tea set in the middle. Mycroft served tea for himself, as Greg declined.

"So, not that this isn't charming," said Greg, watching a spider make its way across the window ledge to a quite spectacularly thick web in the corner, "but you'd better have a bloody good reason for picking me up again. I am not, in fact, a street walker."

"I do apologise," Mycroft said. "I have a proposition for you."

"Did you miss my last statement?"

Mycroft smiled. He took a sip of tea before continuing, and Greg sighed loudly and leaned back in his metal chair, which creaked ominously. He sat up again.

"I am very grateful for the work you have allowed Sherlock," Mycroft said. "He seems to be finding it quite soothing."

Greg stared at him for a few moments before realising he was serious. "He's the only one, I can tell you that much."

"Quite. Unfortunately, I have another issue with which I believe you would be able to assist me."

"Great."

Mycroft's mouth twitched. "I am proficient at the task of keeping track of a person's whereabouts, as I'm sure you're aware. However, my brother is unfortunately similarly proficient at evasion. When Sherlock doesn't want to be found... well, it's not impossible, but it does take rather a lot of extra effort."

"I'm getting bored," Greg said. "Your vocabulary's lovely, and all, but this isn't a poetry lesson. Get to the point."

"I wasn't aware I was being particularly poetic," Mycroft said. It was difficult to tell if he was taking the piss or was genuinely confused.

"Yeah, well," Greg scratched the back of his head, "I went to a comp, so what do you want?"

Mycroft looked irritated. It was quite an amusing sight, him slowly putting his teacup back on the table. "I would like you to provide me with regular information." He stopped talking, but Greg refused to bite. Eventually he continued, "About Sherlock. His whereabouts, his habits...whatever he's engaged in. Nothing too detailed, just enough to give me an idea of how he is faring."

"Right," said Greg. "You two aren't exactly normal, so I'm going to assume this hasn't actually occured to you, but why don't you just ask him? You know, pick up the phone like normal siblings do. Meet up and go bowling. Or gravedigging, whatever your shared hobby is."

"You seem to be assuming rather a lot about me, Detective Inspector."

"Ditto," said Greg.

Mycroft cleared his throat. "Sherlock would prefer that I... left him to his own devices. However, I think you'll understand when I say his own devices are not particularly safe ones, for any of us."

"His own devices are probably carpet bombs, yeah. But is he really going to that much trouble to avoid you?"

"My team have been working overtime to locate him. By the time they manage he's usually disappeared again." He didn't look happy about admitting that.

"Right." Greg thought for a moment. "So what do you usually do to find out about him?"

"Wait for the tantrum to pass. Occasionally there is someone briefly involved in his life who is willing to act as a messenger, but people don't usually stay long."

"I wonder why. So what did you do, take his teddy off him?"

Mycroft was sat back in his chair, hands clasped in his lap. He inhaled and held the breath for a few beats before exhaling and replying, "I asked you to work with him." He looked at Greg, who was raising an eyebrow. "He didn't appreciate my 'meddling', so he said. Eventually."

Greg shook his head. "Your poor fucking parents. So let me get this straight: he stopped talking to you because he knows you talked to me about him, and now you want me to tell you what he's up to?"

"In a word: yes. You would, of course, be handsomely rewarded."

"No I wouldn't," Greg said. "Can't you just guess? You've got the same psychic abilities as he has."

"We're not _psychic_ , Detective-"

"Greg," Greg butted in. "That's getting ridiculous."

"Detective Greg?" Mycroft's mouth quirked so quickly it was hard to tell if it had even happened.

"Just Greg, thanks."

"Of course." Mycroft inclined his head. "As I was saying, Greg, we're not psychic. We merely observe and predict the likely possibilities from the data produced. In a... similar manner to the way you work."

"That _is_ the way I work," Greg said, suddenly very unimpressed. Mycroft smiled and nodded in a way that was completely unconvincing, and Greg scowled at him.

"Anyway," he said, once he felt he'd made his feelings clear enough, "why don't you just do that?"

"My brother," Mycroft said with a sigh, "is a law unto himself. It is, sometimes, difficult to predict what he will do, as he often doesn't know himself. It's hard to say what might cause a distraction at any moment. One can make guesses, certainly, but that is all they are. I require facts to keep my brother safe."

"Safe from what?"

Mycroft tilted his head. "What do you think is the biggest danger to Sherlock Holmes?"

"Yeah, all right." Greg took in a lungful of air and puffed it out.

"Can I count on your assistance?" Mycroft asked after a while.

Greg stared at the rotting doorframe as he thought about it. "I'll tell you what I think you ought to know," he said. He took his phone out and put it on the table. "Put your number in."

Mycroft glanced at it and said, "You may not be aware of all of the relevant data. It's much better if you tell me everything you know and I can-"

"I will tell you what I think you ought to know," Greg said again, slowly and deliberately. "You either trust I know well enough what's necessary, or you live on in the dark. Your choice."

Mycroft took for-fucking-ever to pick up the phone and put his number in.

"So, this Sherlock and Mycroft thing," Greg said as Mycroft keyed in the digits. "What's that about?"

Mycroft managed to look very unimpressed without even looking up from the phone. Greg pursued it. "What is it, childhood code names or something?"

Mycroft put the phone down and looked at him. "They are our names," he said. He sort of bit the sentence off at the end, like he wanted to say "Detective Inspector" again but was forcing himself not to, and didn't want to put "Greg" there instead.

Greg watched him for a few moments before coming to the decision that he was, in fact, serious. "Both of you?" he asked. "Those are actually the names that both of you have written on your birth certificates? From birth?"

"Just so." Mycroft did not look impressed with this truth.

"Bloody hell," Greg said, shaking his head. "Well, suppose that explains you, then. You either live up or down to a name like that." He stood, picking the phone up and pocketing it. "My condolences," he said. It was mean, but he felt he deserved a tiny little childish jab before he left. He was missing his first beer of the evening, after all.

* * * * *

"Hello?" Greg answered the phone with a healthy dose of suspicion, the same that most people reserved for unknown numbers.

"Good afternoon, Detective Inspector."

It took him a few moments to match the voice to the face, and when he did he rolled his eyes. "Good afternoon, _Mycroft_."

From the pause that came afterwards, Greg guessed not many people referred to him by his first name. He was going to have to learn to live with it, though, because he'd never introduced himself as any other role than Sherlock's brother and Greg wasn't going to be calling him Mr Holmes.

"Yesterday," said Mycroft, "Sherlock was sent away from your crime scene."

"Yeah," Greg said, then paused to take a bite of an apple. He leaned back in his desk chair. "He turned up off his tits, obvious to anyone in a mile radius. I wasn't sure the other day when I dropped off a couple of files for him but yesterday he was practically asking to get arrested."

"Given our agreement," Mycroft said, "do you not believe this is information I _ought_ to know?"

Greg scowled, though obviously Mycroft couldn't appreciate it. He took a hard bite of the apple instead and said through it, "Don't treat me like a prick."

"I beg your pardon?" Mycroft replied, sounding astonished.

"Obviously you ought to know," said Greg, getting up from his desk and going to close his blinds so none of his team could see the rest of the conversation. "But you do know. That's why you're calling. If there's one place you can easily track your brother, it's somewhere crawling with police. So don't try and act like I'm withholding stuff from you, and don't try and treat me like one of your lackeys. I'm not, and I'm not an idiot." Greg paused and then added quickly before Mycroft could respond, "And don't bloody compare me to either of you because you're just - not real."

It was hard to defend himself without accidentally stroking Mycroft's ego at the same time.

"My apologies, Detec - Greg. You are of course right. I didn't mean to imply you could not be trusted to carry out the task I have requested."

"You did," Greg said. He went back to the desk and picked up the apple again. "But apology accepted, anyway."

There was a pause, until Greg asked, "Want anything else? Colour of his shoes, maybe?"

"Thank you. I'm sorry to have disturbed you."

Greg huffed as the call ended. The man was a knob.

* * * * *

"I will be out of the country for the best part of a month," Mycroft informed Greg. He stood behind a desk which Greg suspected might actually be his, in the sense that he might work at it quite often, when he wasn't out staring people into submission.

The suited woman - whose name he really ought to know, Greg supposed, given that she had now appeared to come and pick him up for the third time running, notwithstanding the times he'd refused to go with her - handed Mycroft a tumbler, then gave another to Greg. She looked like she wasn't that happy about it, but obviously she had her orders. Greg took it, and when he looked at it found he wasn't that happy about it either. He sniffed it. "Jesus. Aren't you meant to make it less obvious when you're trying to poison someone?"

Mycroft frowned at him like he was disappointed. "It's a cocktail of various 'superfoods' - a descriptor which is, naturally, hyperbolic to say the least, but they are ingredients which are beneficial in moderation. Good for the gut, or so I'm told." He took a large swallow himself, and Greg definitely saw him grimace.

"Bad for the taste buds, though," he said. "Thanks, I'll stick to abusing my insides with actual food."

He watched Mycroft sort of twitch his head slightly, then take another mouthful before he said, "So what's you being out of the country got to do with me?"

"I will, obviously, not be able to act on information you give me. I will however be able to accept that information as before; if I am unable to answer a call you may leave an answerphone message."

Greg nodded. "I'm familiar with the technology. We even have electric lights these days."

Mycroft twitched again. It looked like a sarcastic smile was trying to creep out but he was holding it back. It was quite an interesting facial expression to observe, and Greg wondered what else he could say that would provoke it.

"However," said Mycroft, setting down his glass and resting both hands on the desk, "as I say, I will be unable to act on any information."

"Surely you have your trained monkeys to do that for you?" Greg interrupted before he could finish. He turned and pointed to suit-woman, who outright glared at him. He flashed her a smile. It wasn't that he thought any less of her for working for someone, just that that someone was Mycroft. Which was a bit odd if he thought about it because _he_ was sort of working for the man...

He comforted himself with the thought that he was doing this for Sherlock's sake, not anyone else's. Which, again, made him probably masochistic, but at least he had his values. He wasn't kidnapping anyone just to get them in for a chat.

Mycroft cleared his throat. "Sherlock is evasive, as you know. He refuses to accept help from me and from anyone working for me, less so. You, on the other hand, represent a...safer option."

"I have hit him, you know." It was true. Greg wasn't particularly proud of it, not the way Jarvis or Kelly would be, like they'd got their own back on him for being so bloody irritating. But he felt it needed saying. He wasn't dangerous, he didn't think, but he didn't like being labelled as safe either.

"I know," Mycroft said. Greg nodded. He wasn't sure if he would have done, given that the whole point of Greg's involvement with Mycroft was that Mycroft didn't know everything, but he supposed the shiner was probably quite hard to miss. "I'm also aware of why you did it."

"Right."

"That in itself is an example of what I mean when I say you are a safer option. There are many who would hurt Sherlock to soothe their own bruised egos but not many who would do so in order to attempt to stop him from hurting himself further."

"Attempt, yeah," Greg snorted. It hadn't worked. Sherlock had gone out and got high just the same.

"Nevertheless." Mycroft was standing tall now, serious expression on his face. "I would like to...request that you keep a closer eye on him for the next few weeks. If he requires intervention in any substantial way, my people will be able to assist, though that will be largely in a monetary capacity rather than with intimate support."

"You mean, if he needs chucking in rehab they'll foot the bill but I've got to be the one who wrestles him into the car."

The twitch was back. "Quite."

Greg nodded slowly, thinking this over. It seemed reasonable, in proportion to the ridiculous setup they already had, at least. "Okay," he said. A thought occurred. "Why didn't you just ask me this over the phone, though?"

Mycroft's face was curiously blank.

"I mean," Greg went on, "nice office and all, but I could have lived without the interruption. I've got shit to do."

"My apologies," Mycroft said immediately. "Of course, your sons are visiting this weekend." Greg frowned at him, then realised of course, he was Sherlock's brother, even if he wasn't an insufferable prick in the same way. "Please, Julia will direct you back to the car."

"Julia." Greg nodded at her. "Lead the way, then."

He only realised halfway home that he hadn't actually got an answer to his question.

* * * * *

Luckily for everyone involved, Mycroft's visit to wherever it was didn't coincide with Sherlock being any more batshit than normal. If anything, he seemed to calm down a bit, being slightly more cooperative and slightly less high whenever Greg interacted with him, whether that was at a scene, the station or during surprise visits to his disgusting flat.

Greg wondered if maybe Sherlock played up a bit when Mycroft was around, just because Sherlock was in fact still a toddler emotionally. At any rate, he hadn't known them long enough to say for sure, so he kept his theory to himself when Mycroft phoned him up to tell him the car would be outside at the start of his lunch break.

"What's a lunch break?" Greg replied. "Don't have it out the front, for fuck's sake. Go down...Buckingham Gate or something, outside The Albert."

The car took him - and of course, Julia, because he couldn't be trusted to sit in the back of a car on his own - to another underground garage, with another long walk through hallways with expensive carpets before they reached a door with no number. Julia knocked for him, but walked away before anyone answered. Greg watched her go and considered the idea that it was meant to be a secret knock. It didn't sound very secret, but maybe that was the point.

"Greg," Mycroft greeted him when the door was opened by a man Greg hadn't seen before. For once, Mycroft was actually sat down waiting rather than coming in from doing something else. "Thank you for coming."

Greg crossed the room slowly, and had to force himself to sit down on the sofa adjacent to Mycroft's armchair. Mycroft's suit jacket was nowhere in evidence; his shirt sleeves were rolled up and he looked probably as relaxed as he ever did.

"Afternoon." Greg took a few moments to look around the place. Bringing his gaze back to Mycroft, finally, he felt he had good enough odds to guess that this place might actually be Mycroft's home. Or one of them, at least.

"Take a sandwich, please." Mycroft gestured to the fussy coffee table between them. At another time Greg might have raised an eyebrow at the intricate designs of sea creatures made from wrought iron, visible through the glass top, but for the time being his attention was diverted by the food. Lunch was often more of an idea rather than a reality, European Working Time Directive be damned, but it didn't mean Greg would ever get used to the missed food.

He selected chicken and bacon with mayonnaise and salad, and had taken two bites before he noticed Mycroft had joined him, taking small bites and leaning back in his chair. How he wasn't getting crumbs everywhere was a mystery, but it was probably a skill they taught at his kind of school.

"Ah!" said Mycroft suddenly, after swallowing. "I almost forgot. Ivo, the coffee, if you will."

Moments later, Ivo - of door opening fame - brought two steaming mugs of rich, dark coffee. Greg moaned in appreciation through his sandwich at the smell alone. He didn't need to look at Mycroft to be sure he was smiling. Still, the man knew whatever the hell he wanted to know, so it wasn't like holding himself back would give him any more power. He might as well be blatant.

They ate and drank in silence for several minutes, and after his third sandwich - cheese and pickle - Greg sat back and sighed with happiness. He kept the mug held loosely in his right hand, resting on his thigh.

Eventually he looked over at Mycroft and said, "This is more like it."

"Hmm?" Mycroft had stopped eating and sat, too, with his coffee. Greg suspected he'd probably finished when Greg did, something to do with manners which Greg couldn't be arsed with, whether or not he'd actually eaten his fill.

"Sandwiches and coffee," Greg said, unnecessarily. "If you're gonna interrupt my life you'll get a lot more out of me like this. Not," he said abruptly, raising his head, narrowing his eyes at Mycroft and pointing with his free hand, "that I'm saying I'm easy. Because I'm not."

He knew, he absolutely knew that Mycroft was holding back a laugh, and he grinned.

* * * * *

"You know I'll bloody phone you, yeah?" Greg said when he answered the phone. It was a risk, but there was a greater chance than not that an unknown number meant Mycroft.

It did.

"I have every faith in you, Greg," Mycroft replied. He still sounded like he wanted to say _Detective Inspector_ , but Greg wasn't having that.

"Mmm, I'm sure."

There was a knock at the door. "Hang on." Greg opened it, and raised his eyebrows at the delivery man on the other side holding up a plastic bag full of what he suspected, going by the guy's uniform, was Chinese food. "Er, sorry mate-"

"It is for you," Mycroft interrupted him. "Accept the bag."

Greg held his hand out for the bag, slowly, and the man passed it over, inclined his head and walked away.

"Right," Greg said, looking at the bag in his hand and not at Jarvis, who was staring at him from across the office. He closed the door. "Why have I got this?"

"It's half past nine and you haven't eaten since ten this morning," Mycroft said. Greg started unpacking the containers onto his desk, thinking he really should be worried about what Mycroft knew, but it was difficult to care when there was beef lo mein right in front of him. "Your efficiency will reduce drastically the more you neglect your body's needs."

"Guess I'd better hire a prostitute on my way home, then," Greg said through a mouthful of noodles, having stuffed them into his mouth even before he sat down, "'cause that's the only way I'll be getting sex any time soon."

It was a few seconds before he realised he had actually managed to stun Mycroft into silence. That or the line had dropped. "'lo?"

Mycroft made a noise like a half-cough. "I'm afraid that's something I can't help you with."

Greg laughed, and managed to finish his mouthful this time before he said, "Yeah, your escorts would be a bit high-class for me."

The silence that followed again was probably a sign he was straying into dangerous territory, so he brought it back with, "All right, what do you want to know?"

They settled into the familiar rhythm of reporting and analysing, and the Chinese was delicious.

* * * * *

Six days later brought Ivo with a prawn cocktail, actually served in a glass but packed tightly in a coolbox. Greg had to go down to the front desk for that one, and got a number of jibes during the rest of the afternoon about his suited admirer as a result. Ivo couldn't have looked less admiring, actually, and Greg guessed he probably wanted to be doing something a bit more useful than delivering lunch to a police officer.

Greg's phone rang a couple of minutes after he re-entered his office. It was the landline, so he answered with, "DI Lestrade."

"Hello, Detective Inspector Lestrade." Mycroft sounded more cheerful than ever before.

"Piss off, that's my work title," Greg said. He bit a prawn in two. "How come you're phoning this now? Have I got my mobile on silent?"

"I can only assume you left it at home," Mycroft said, which on a quick flick back through the memory of Greg's morning turned out to be the case, but he refused to believe it was an assumption.

"You're bloody feeding me up, here," Greg said. He hadn't had a prawn cocktail in...probably at least ten years. Katie had had a sort of phobia about seafood. "Are you trying to chat me up really slowly?"

Mycroft took a few moments to answer, and then he said, "No, I assure you I am not." He sounded faintly horrified at the idea, which was a bit rich considering he was delivering food to a man he only spoke to because he wanted to spy on his brother, and it was off his own bat.

"All right, calm down," Greg said, forking up some rocket. "Just checking. I don't swing that way, so I didn't want to give you false hopes." He hadn't really thought about it as a possibility until he'd made the joke, but neither, it seemed, had Mycroft.

"Luckily that will not be an issue," Mycroft said, sounding a bit choked, and Greg rolled his eyes at how easily this idiot could get tongue-tied. Still, he thought, he had a surefire way to stop him in the future any time he was getting a bit annoying. He could just suggest they watch a bit of porn together.

Greg laughed to himself, refused to tell Mycroft why, and finished the cocktail before he delivered his news.

* * * * *

"I don't like him," Greg said, fishing through his coat pockets for any loose change he might have. He only had twenty pence so far and that wasn't going to get him anywhere with the vending machine. The rest of the team had all gone home but he was stuck finishing up the report, with Hunter insisting - unfairly and unnecessarily - that it needed to be done by Monday morning.

He found what he needed, enough for a Kit Kat, and went through the office to the empty corridor. "I keep expecting to find out he's stabbed Sherlock in his sleep."

"Sherlock doesn't sleep that much, as I'm sure you know," Mycroft said.

"Yeah, but he crashes out eventually. Besides, it might be that prick's sleep instead. He's the type to turn stangler while sleepwalking."

"If he were a strangler, why would he require a knife?"

Greg fed the coins into the machine. "Don't be a twat. I know it's difficult, but try not to."

Mycroft laughed quietly at the other end. "I think Scott might find himself more secure lodgings in the near future," he said.

"Secure like he's reached the top of the housing office homeless list, or secure like he's being held at Her Majesty's pleasure?" The Kit Kat thumped down into the tray on Greg's third attempt at entering the code, and he collected it.

"That depends," said Mycroft. "Does Sherlock like him?"

"Fuck knows," Greg said. He broke a finger off and ate half of it in one bite. This was probably only going to whet his appetite rather than sate his hunger, but he hoped he'd manage to get home before he got too hungry to be able to concentrate properly. "You know," he said, suddenly struck by a realisation that this was the third time Mycroft had phoned him since he sent the prawn cocktail, "I didn't say I didn't _like_ the deliveries."

He ate another finger while Mycroft digested this, or hopefully gave some silent order to someone else, and then Mycroft said, "Noted, Greg."

"Cool. Put him in jail," Greg decided. "He'll only end up there soon enough anyway, might as well cut out the middle bit."

"Would you like to do the honours?"

"Not really," he said, "but I can write you a list of charges. Actually, if I get Sherlock to join in it might distract him for five minutes."

Nobody turned up with dinner, but the phonecall cheered him up enough that the rest of the report was easier to finish, and he enjoyed the fish and chips he picked up on the way home.

* * * * *

"Shit, sorry," Greg said, somehow bumping into a woman that had appeared out of nowhere. "Oh," he said, meeting her eyes and realising how that had happened. "Hi, Julia."

She obviously didn't like him, as she refused his attempts to engage her in conversation, so they travelled in silence after that. The car pulled up outside a restaurant, and Greg looked out the other window at first to see if there were flats or something across the street.

Julia sighed. "It's the restaurant," she said. "You're meeting Mr Holmes."

Greg rolled his eyes and got out. He relayed this message to the maître d' and was shown to a discreet table near to the back, half hidden by odd walls and potted plants.

Despite the strange building qualities, Greg found the restaurant was pretty decent. For a start, it wasn't full of people dressed in fur and eating caviar or foie gras, which he would probably have suspected if asked to guess where Mycroft would eat out.

"Come here often?" he asked, in all seriousness, and trusted that Mycroft of all people wouldn't even notice the double entendre. He didn't.

"I have dined here before," he said, shaking out a serviette and putting it in his lap. "Not on a regular basis, however."

It wasn't until the gap between the starter and the main course that Greg decided to address what he felt was the elephant in the room. They'd spent about fifteen minutes talking about Sherlock, then that had segued into a discussion about drugs, then addiction, and now somehow he'd just finished giving his opinion on the primary National Curriculum.

"So," he said, leaning back in his chair, "why am I here?"

Mycroft paused ever-so-slightly in the act of placing his glass back on the table. "As usual, Greg," he said, "you are providing me with information about Sherlock with which I am more capable of safeguarding him. For which I thank you."

Greg shook his head firmly. "Nah," he said. "That took what, quarter of an hour? Would only take five if you didn't ask for my opinion. I'm _here_ , in this restaurant, because you like me."

Mycroft clearly didn't know how to respond to that. Greg grinned.

"You do!" he said, sitting up again. "You are starved for friendship up there in your ivory tower, and you come and pick me up and phone me because most people are just scared of you."

"I don't think you quite understand the meaning of the phrase 'ivory tower'."

Greg rolled his eyes. "Whatever. You know what I mean. Somewhere you're cut off from the rest of us average blokes who relax with beer instead of opera."

Mycroft smiled slightly. "What makes you think I don't enjoy a good beer?"

"That question right there," Greg said, jabbing a finger at him. "You don't drink beer because it's good, you drink it because it lets you forget shit for a bit. Well, _you_ do, or don't...my point is that you are odd, and I bet you've never gone through a box of Foster's in a weekend."

He took Mycroft's bemused expression as a no. Then he realised he was being diverted, and said, "But back to the point, you just want to hang out with me!"

He was waiting for a response this time. Mycroft looked uncomfortable, but Greg wasn't going to break it. Eventually Mycroft shifted and said, "We have a business relationship, Greg. I apologise if I have made you feel-"

"Bullshit," Greg said across him, without heat. "Even if this _was_ just about Sherlock it's not about bloody business. And it isn't, because we've chatted more rubbish the last few times you've phoned me than we have about Sherlock. Come on, just admit it." He took a drink, then set the glass back down. He swallowed and grinned; Mycroft was still watching him and not replying. "I'm amazing company."

Mycroft didn't respond. The main course was served and he thanked the waiter. Greg didn't want to eat yet, despite the fact that it smelled amazing, so he waited. After an absolute age, Mycroft finally said, "Your company is...stimulating."

Greg raised his eyebrows. "Sure you weren't chatting me up?" He took an exaggerated look around the restaurant and added, "This looks quite similar to a date."

He was only teasing, but Mycroft looked very embarrassed. He'd probably trained himself not to blush but he was sat poker stiff. "I can assure you I am not attracted to men," he said.

"It's fine, you crazy bastard," Greg said, finally taking pity on him. And it was fine. If you'd asked him at the beginning if he'd ever be enjoying a meal out with this man he'd have told you to take a running jump, but actually, he was all right company. Mostly he was fun to mess with, Greg thought; it was like embarrassing your little brother or sister with references just a bit too mature for them. "You have a huge amount of terrible qualities, but I've never been that good at picking mates."

"Your assessment of me warms my heart," said Mycroft.

"Good," said Greg. They shared a smile. It was ridiculous, but then that was Greg's life all over.

A thought occurred to him during dessert, after a protracted conversation on rock versus opera, which wasn't something Greg had ever thought you could compare before. "If you weren't trying to chat me up, then, why'd you send me food so bloody often? I mean, not that I'm complaining, but it's still a bit weird."

"I learned," said Mycroft, "that you catch more flies with honey rather than vinegar, if you will allow me to desginate you the role of fly swarm within this idiom." Greg knew he was pulling a face, but he couldn't imagine what it looked like. Still, Mycroft continued after a small sigh with, "Threatening you achieved nothing. Feeding you, on the other hand, was akin to giving belly rubs to a tiger."

"You're a fucking lunatic," Greg declared.

Mycroft raised his glass along with an eyebrow. Greg shook his head at himself, raised his own glass in reply and clinked them together. To lunacy, he supposed.

**Author's Note:**

> I adore concrit.


End file.
